Dementia

I am into contemporary Japanese literature, despite being scolded for it.

Yes, I was! By an elderly Japanese man who found me (innocently) squatting at the Japanese Literature section at Kinokuniya the other day.

They are all rubbish, he said. Why are you reading books by authors who never left their own country? All they write about are tales about their caged-up culture. What is so interesting about that?

Furthermore, Japanese authors are mostly monolingual and their original Japanese texts are often inadvertently bastardized by some academic ang-moh translators. What ultimately ends up in your hands is an ang moh interpretation bearing little or no essence to the original piece. What’s the point?

(Did he pause for a breather? No.)

He quoted examples too. Like how it is a little known fact that Murakami has a team of writers locked in a room somewhere in the land of the rising sun, churning out best-selling novels for him like a factory.

[I can’t say that I believe that although I do think that Murakami is fast becoming an Eastern Paolo Coelho (read: commercialized). All of a sudden, it is fashionable to be seen carrying one his picture-perfect-cover books around. Although I am a fan of his earlier works (like The Elephant Vanishes and Norwegian Woods) but I found his recent novels somewhat somniferous.]

The gentleman’s parting statement to me? If you want to read a REAL book, go for Hemingway.

What I found really ironic is, my friend here has highlighted the exact reason why I enjoy reading contemporary Japanese literature: tales of dementia stemming from a caged-up society. And while the loss of translation is regrettable, I can’t say that I do not find simplified translated English texts a lot more readable!

I thoroughly enjoy the notorious writings of modern Japanese controversial authors such as Amy Yamada, Risa Wataya, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki and Hitomi Kanehara. In almost all of their books, these three themes are common: Repression, Addiction and Gender Inequality. They are tales of struggle and escape from a suppressed and “perfect” society. Words like, “alcohol”, “drugs”, “sex”, “rape”, “blood” and “tears” are often grossly overused.

My first of such books is a dark morbid novel by Hitomi Kanehara called “Snakes & Earrings.” This book was recommended to me by Empress Bao during the time I was dating a rather psychotic friend of hers. She felt that I would benefit from reading about dementia behaviors and she was absolutely right! Although I had nightmares about murderous, forked-tongued, tattooed, anal-sex and body-piercing loving psychopaths for a very long time afterwards, the book did help me realize that all sorts of diabolical self-inflicting thoughts CAN go through a person’s head. In case you are interested to know, that relationship didn’t last - for the aforementioned reasons.

I recently read the author’s latest novel called ‘Auto Fiction,’ which I found a lot lighter. This book is about the coming-to-age journey of an insecure Japanese girl who constantly battles against deranged thoughts and paranoia. Below is an excerpt from the book which I found amusing but absolutely depressing. A scene where the lead character is having a heated argument with her…ahem, genitalia.

(Warning: If you are against flagrant vulgarity, stop here.)

‘Can you hear me?’ My pussy cries out to me. Why am I being stung by this worthless guy? How can you use me like this? Why do something so awful to me? It cries and begs for forgiveness. It asks me to please tell him to stop. Tell him to pull out.

Shut up!

How dare my pussy rule my thoughts! Shut up! You’re just a cunt. Don’t you fucking cry. Don’t you fucking give orders. Die, you nagging cunt, die. Chastity? Are you fucking stupid? A fucking pussy talking about chastity? You’re such a pussy. Remember your place. If you don’t change your attitude, I’ll go nuts doing it with all kinds of losers – oyajis, baldies, and guys with weird dicks. Is that what you want?....... Why are you crying? Can’t you just shut up and listen to what I say?

No, I won’t shut up. Don’t you see it’s not me that hates it? I only hate it because you do.

You’re right. I’m hating it. I don’t want to. I have to in order to survive….. Because I will die if I don’t do this. If I stay this way, I will die of loneliness…. I’m doing my best to endure this. So, please, try to endure it too. This is the least thing you can do for me, my pussy. Please, pussy, please.

Oh you poor thing, says my pussy

What the fuck? Don’t you poor thing me, you idiot.

Hahaha! Ok, I will stop here. Even as I am typing this, my face is all scrunched up! I guess you can pretty much predict how this story will end.

While I enjoy them in small doses, I am not very good at digesting morose literature. I am on my last few chapters already so once I am done, I will probably go for something more ‘conventional’. Maybe I should consider the gentleman’s recommendation of going for Hemingway. ”The Old Man and the Sea,” perhaps?

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed” – Ernest Hemingway.